


we were born to be much more (and we'll take everything we can)

by CallMeBombshell



Series: the games of gods [2]
Category: Greek and Roman Mythology, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-17
Updated: 2013-06-17
Packaged: 2017-12-15 05:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/845946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallMeBombshell/pseuds/CallMeBombshell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It goes like this:</p><p>Stiles is the messenger of the Gods; Lydia is the daughter of the Earth. Together, they're both going to get exactly what they want.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we were born to be much more (and we'll take everything we can)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SordidCrayons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SordidCrayons/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Speed vs Strength (he'll always lose)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/543005) by [SordidCrayons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SordidCrayons/pseuds/SordidCrayons). 
  * Inspired by [(Captured) For Reasons Unknown](https://archiveofourown.org/works/545437) by [SordidCrayons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SordidCrayons/pseuds/SordidCrayons). 



> Anna, my darling, I am SO SORRY that this took approximately forever and a fucking half to finish this! D: You are the most amazing, wonderful person for being so patient and waiting so long for me to finish writing this. You asked for 2000 words and this ended up being more than three times that, so I hope that will help make up for the long-as-fuck wait you had to endure. I hope you like it, darling! And as always, thanks so much for letting me play in your awesome universe :D

It goes like this:

Stiles is his father’s son, the messenger of the Gods with his quick tongue, honeyed and sharp, bringing invitations and refusals and gossip and letters of love and hate to all the corners of Olympus and the world. He flies with the wind, the wings on his heels speeding him away, laughter and shouting and tears fading into silence behind him.

He brings the Gods’ messages to their heroes, to Danny and Boyd and the rest, brings their stories back to his father’s court and spins grand tales of their adventures accompanied by sweeping gestures and exaggerated motions. He brings the usual declarations of war and battle from Chris and his servants, recites his father’s challenging responses back to the God of the Sea with a wicked smirk and doesn’t quite manage to school his expression to innocence.

He breathes in air and breathes out words, sarcasm and humour and pithy wit falling from his lips like rain from the clouds and never quite stops talking, even when his mouth is no longer moving, but never quite says anything, either.

He knows everything before it happens, lovers’ secret trysts and enemies’ secret plans and a thousand mundane details about a thousand other people, their words pouring from him in a flood.

In quiet moments, Stiles sits in high places by himself, above the clouds where the sound of the world is but a faint rumble, and wonders what it would be like to have messages of his own to send.

\- - - - -

It goes like this:

There has been a battle and the ground has been made black and dead by blood and fire and the trampling of hundreds of feet. Melissa strides across wide fields, eyes bright and angry, seeds falling like dust from her fingers and she tries to repair the damage that has been done. She pays Lydia no mind. Lydia prefers it that way. 

Melissa took Lydia from her home when she was but a baby, her parents vanished or dead somewhere and little baby Lydia left all alone to cry, forgotten in the yard. Melissa heard her cries and came, taking her for her own, as her own daughter, and as such Lydia has lived ever since, blessed as any other of her kind, considered half a Goddess even though Melissa never gave birth to her herself. For that, if little else, Lydia calls her Mother, and does as she asks.

Lydia crouches low, inspecting a thin, trailing vine still clinging stubbornly to the fence post it had grown against. The vine is brittle, it’s stalk gone hollow and thin without water, and it’s leaves are crumpled and dry and dead. Lydia traces it carefully, gently, with one finger, shivering at the way the leaves rustle and whisper in the breeze.

Up ahead, Melissa clenches her fists and throws dirty looks at the sky, knowing better than to call on the messenger of the Gods to bring a strongly-worded message to his father, but clearly wanting to do so anyway.

Lydia turns her eyes back to the vine, the small, brown skeleton of a plant, and wonders that her mother does not find it beautiful in the least.

\- - - - -

The first time Stiles sees him, he’s leaning back against one of the walls in Stiles’ father’s throne room, tall and dark and unspeakably handsome. Everything about him screams aggression and anger, the tense line of his shoulders drawn tight like a wire, the sharp lines of his jaw and nose. His thickly-muscled arms are crossed over his truly impressive chest, eyes flashing like fire as he glares darkly from his corner.

The God is ignoring everyone and everyone ignores him in return, so Stiles takes advantage of the moment to trace his eyes across broad shoulders and down to the God’s trim waist, lets his gaze slide down the length of his strong thighs. When his eyes bounce back up again, the God’s hands catch his attention, strong, thick fingers and knuckles worn red by labour (and possibly by something more).

Then the God twitches, just a slight movement, a shift of his muscles, but it’s enough to make Stiles look back up to his face. The God is looking at him aside, a red flash in his eyes like fresh blood, and Stiles feels his breath catch in his throat, awareness and recognition bursting at the back of his mind. 

Derek, the God of War, looks back at him, the hard line of his face unchanging, but the red is gone now and Stiles can’t look away.

He thinks Derek’s eyes might be green.

\- - - - -

It is high summer in her mother’s garden, plants bursting green in the sun, yellow pollen on the air and a thousand kinds of flowers in a thousand colours everywhere Lydia can see.

It makes her eyes hurt, everything sharp and over-bright.

She takes her shelter under the shade of a tree, old and creaking and dead in the centre, and wonders how her mother can stand it all the time, the quiet, insistent cacophony of growing things, clamouring for water and for light and for air, each a little more particular than the last, each a little more demanding. Melissa’s back is bent, hands stained brown with dirt, her knuckles cracked and dry.

Lydia’s hands are pale and soft, her fingers slender. They are not hands that long to dig in the dirt and soil, or tangle in the curls of flowers and vines, or trail through the long, whispering stalks of wheat and grain. Lydia’s hands are made for marble and stone, for smooth, polished metal and the cool rush of water.

There is a hollow in the base of the tree she rests against, a small burrow, perhaps, or a place where the roots have lifted the ground. Or perhaps, Lydia thinks, a portal beneath the earth, full of soft black dirt and water running in endless channels, and soft white flowers like the moon.

Lydia sits in the shadow of the tree and hums as a thought begins to form in the back of her mind.

\- - - - -

When Kate summons him, Stiles resists the urge to shudder, to drag his feet, to make excuses. He’s never liked carrying her messages, her words too sharp for all that they tend to drip with compliments and flatteries like honey. They feel wrong on Stiles’ tongue, liquid and too heavy, and they spill awkwardly from his lips and he stammers and tries not to blush, not from bashfulness or embarrassment, but from mortification.

Kate talks about flowers and wine, beauty and sumptuousness and gluttony, talks about the red haze of desire making the all the world a sea of pleasure. It sounds hollow and insincere to Stiles, too full of smoke and dust like the potions and powders Morrell uses. He can’t imagine ever trying to speak to someone like that. 

Everything about Kate feels heavy to him, the sinuous curves of her as she stands slowly, gracefully, from her pillowed couch. The walls of her rooms are draped in rich, heavy fabrics, the curtains on the windows sheer and whispery when the breezes blow through them. Kate’s tunic is the same, draping low from her shoulders and trailing behind her, sliding between her legs as she walks.

She lays a hand on Stiles’ shoulder, her light grip too warm. He can feel the heat of her fingers through his tunic like a brand. To other men, perhaps, Kate’s touch feels like desire and warmth and the hot rush of pleasure. To Stiles, it just feels like fire, burning and dangerous.

Kate leans in close to whisper in his ear, and Stiles feels himself shudder at her breath across his cheek.

“I have my sights on a new lover,” Kate tells him, smiling wickedly. Stiles hates this about her most of all, the way she speaks like they’re friends, like he delivers her messages not out of duty, but because he wants to, because he wants to know.

“I wish you to go to him and tell him of my desire to see him. I have even had something made for him, for us,” Kate adds, coming to stand behind Stiles so she can turn him, her fingers like five points of fire along his jaw, guiding his gaze to a far corner of her chambers.

There, lit only by candles, stands a large bed, the posts of it made with black metal, stark against the slick, red fabric of the bed clothes. It could be beautiful, maybe, but Stiles’ eyes are caught by the length of chain wrapped around the posts, already set into loops to be bound around a man’s wrists.

“What do you think?” Kate whispers in Stiles’ ear. “It’s perfect, isn’t it?”

Stiles swallows, hard, and says nothing. Kate doesn’t seem to care. She tightens her grip on his arms, her nails digging marks into his skin. He breath is hot against his cheek.

“I mean to hold him with fire and iron and blood,” Kate tells him, her voice gone dark and silky. “After all, how else to take the God of War?”

\- - - - -

When Melissa finally breaks and announces her intent to deliver a message to Olympus about the state of her crops, Lydia offers to take it herself.

“To spare the messenger the trip,” she says, “and to let them know how serious you are, mother.”

And to allow Lydia a moment alone to speak to Stiles, who would otherwise be called to her mother’s side, and whom Lydia has a proposition for.

She’s in luck; Stiles is perched precariously at the top of the gates that guard Olympus. He looks down at her curiously, but doesn’t move until she waves the scroll her mother gave her.

“Come down,” she tells him, ignoring the way she can’t quite make it a request and not an order. Stiles doesn’t seem to mind; he slips from his perch, feet landing lightly on the grass in front of her. He smiles, sunny and bright.

“What can I do for you?”

Lydia waves the scroll in her hand again. “My mother has a message for your father,” she tells him. “These stupid battles are destroying her crops.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “I’m so glad I never have to be involved other than delivering threats and promises. I swear, they keep coming up with new complaints against each other just so they can keep fighting.”

Lydia arches a brow, resisting the urge to roll her own eyes. “Sometimes I honestly don’t know how anything gets done around here.”

Stiles laughs, head thrown back; it sounds a bit like bells, or like glass. Lydia stares at him.

“I like you,” he tells her, once he’s stopped and is smiling down at her, wide. He extends a hand to her. “Come with me to deliver this? I’ll tell you ridiculous stories about everyone we pass.”

\- - - - -

Stiles has always been good at talking.

Not that he does it all the time, not that he can’t keep his mouth shut, because he’s never been one for useless babble. But he’s always had a way with words, a certain twist of humor, a fleeting touch of sarcasm, a subtle hint of double meanings. It’s been his gift since he was born, since long before his father granted him his role on Olympus, since long before he took to his winged heels. Words have always been his domain and his delight.

He just hadn’t realised how lonely it was to be only the messenger, delivering only other people’s words and never his own, or how wonderful it was to be able to tell his own stories and know that someone else was interested in hearing them.

Because Lydia is interested, laughs at the stories he tells her about the people around them, the tidbits about their lives. She asks questions, makes comments, goads him into telling her more (not that he needs to encouragement, really).

Lydia is fire wrapped in petal-softness, pink lips and copper hair; she is beautiful. Stiles watches her, watches the way she smiles, sharp and lovely, the way she laughs at something he says, head thrown back, exposing the long marble line of her throat. 

Lydia is all white skin and shining hair on the outside and cold steel and stone underneath. There is a darkness to her when she laughs at his sarcasm, a thin thread of cruelty that burrows into him and twists, not unpleasantly, in his gut. Her eyes, when she looks at him, are dark and dancing, like she’s laughing at him in secret behind her grin. Stiles looks at her, smiles back, and feels a shiver spiral down his spine.

(When his heart skips, though, it’s only because her green eyes remind him of someone else. He’s not entirely certainly what to make of that, really.)

\- - - - -

Lydia has decided that she likes Stiles, against all expectation.

They’ve long since delivered Melissa’s message and now they’re sitting in a small side courtyard, watching people come and go from Olympus’s main halls. Lydia trails her fingers through the grass, gently, while Stiles lies on his back beside her, tracing images in the clouds above them.

He is bouncy, all expressive gestures and talking with his hands, his face contorting wildly as he speaks. But there’s a restlessness in him, Lydia thinks, that’s not born of boredom or clumsiness. She can see plainly the lithe muscle in his arms, the wide span of his hands, his long fingers. There is a sharpness in his eyes, in the set of his jaw, a hint of mischief in the flash of his teeth when he smiles.

He reminds her of a knife, quick and sharp, with wings on his feet that can outrun anyone, and the curve of his grin like cut glass, shining and too-bright. There is wickedness in him, too; she can hear it when he speaks, his comments just shy of cutting, just this side of cruel. His words are layered, everything he says laced with double-meanings and innuendos, making her laugh aloud when passerby seem not to notice his pointed jabs in their direction.

He laughs, full and bright in the sun, making his eyes glow like amber.

Were her ambitions smaller, Lydia thinks, she might even love him. They are of a kind, so alike in so many ways, and so well-matched. They could do great things, she thinks, could plot and plan and scheme, subtle and misleading, could do anything they wished with no one to stop them. 

But Lydia has plans, and for all that Stiles is nearly perfect, he is not what she has dreamed of. He is a master of words, the whisper in the dark, the messenger whose word cannot be doubted, but he cannot give her what she wants. Lydia dreams of a throne, dreams of a crown, dreams of being queen. And she will settle for nothing less than that.

“What do you know about the Underworld?” she asks Stiles, finally, turning to look down at him. 

Stiles stares, blinking. “Why do you want to know about the Underworld?” he asks, a note of incredulity in his voice. 

Lydia shrugs, casual, and lets herself smile just a little, sharp and wicked the way she’s practised in her small mirror at night. “Because,” she tells him simply, “I have plans for it.”

\- - - - -

Lydia sits like a statue in the grass, legs curled artfully under her, small hands smooth and slender and pale, same as her thighs in the sun where her skirt has ridden up. Stiles stares at her side-long as they sit in the grass and talk.

Lydia means to marry Peter, means to force him to make her Queen of the Underworld, a Goddess in her own right. Lydia has plans, grand and sweeping and impossible, and she won’t tell Stiles all the details, but what she does tell him is more than enough to convince him that she can do it. There’s no nervousness or apprehension in her voice, and the way she smirks and hints at greater things tells Stiles that she has a map in her head, a checklist of all the things she needs to do to make her dreams come true.

“I am my mother’s daughter,” she tells him. “But that is not all that I am, or want, or will be.”

“Then what will you be?” Stiles asks, leaning close, conspiratory.

“I am not going to live my life in the fields. I am not going to spend all my time covered in dirt and sweat, tending to plants. I am not going to be Queen of the Earth,” Lydia tells him, smiling dark and wicked, “but I will be Queen under it.”

Stiles is silent for a long moment, thinking, ideas whirling through his head almost faster than he can keep up with them. But finally he grins wide, feels it pull sharp at the corners of his mouth, and says, “Well then, your majesty. Where do we begin?”

\- - - - -

Jackson is easy to get to, and easy to snare.

He’s beautiful, of course, all chiselled lines and smooth skin, bright blue eyes and full lips, hip cocked as he leans against the wall and surveys her. His tunic is half-undone, hanging from his hips, and she can still see the agitation in him, the tension in his muscles from whatever had caused him to come storming in like a thundercloud.

He prowls over when she invites him, sitting too close, smirking like he thinks he’s got the upper hand here; it’s sort of adorable, really, especially the look on his face as he realises he’s at a loss.

“I want you to shoot someone with one of those arrows of yours,” she tells him plainly, when he asks. He suggests she go to Kate; she laughs in his face.

“What do I get out of it?” he asks, finally.

Lydia smirks, lets her body go languid and relaxed as she stands. “You get _me_.”

She watches the way his eyes go wide and hungry as she opens her robe, lets it drop to the floor. She stands in the middle of the room, naked and unabashed, and watches the God of Love struggle not to touch her. She saunters closer.

When she touches him, just a hand to his arm, she already knows that she’ll get her arrow.

By the time she sinks to her knees before him, she knows he will do anything she commands.

\- - - - -

The fifth time Stiles takes Kate’s summons to Derek, he can’t restrain himself. It’s gotten worse, the sick swoop in his stomach every time, the crawling under his skin like an army of a thousand ants has burrowed inside him. She’d called him to her chambers again, handed him a roll of parchment and sent him off with a scalding kiss to his cheek, but not before she’d gotten the chance to show off her latest toy, standing in the corner.

It’s a cage. A fucking cage, black iron bars on three sides and a barred door on the fourth, chain looped around the bars at the top. Stiles stares, horrified, for the long moment it takes before he can school his expression back to neutral. 

“Looks comfy,” he quips, and then he’s twisting away, steps a little too quick, anything to get away from Kate. He still feels her eyes following him long after the door has closed behind him. The image of the cage sticks in his mind with every step he takes.

He sees it still when he finally reaches Derek’s rooms, handing off Kate’s note. Their fingers brush, minutely, and Stiles can’t help the way he looks up, gaze caught on Derek’s features. His mouth is open before he even realises he means to speak.

“Why do you go to her?”

Derek looks up from Kate’s note with a bland expression, one eyebrow raised. Even across the room, Stiles can smell the perfume Kate has soaked the parchment in before writing her note to Derek. It hangs heavy in the still air like a cloud; Stiles want to choke.

“Why not?” Derek says after a moment, like it’s an answer, like it’s any kind of reason at all, like it’s honestly that simple.

And hell, Stiles thinks, maybe for him it is. Maybe he doesn’t truly care for her. Maybe he doesn’t even really lust after her, despite her efforts. Maybe he only goes because he has nothing better to do. Maybe it means nothing to him, just a body wrapped around his and trying not to kill him, for once. 

Except that Stiles isn’t sure, sometimes, that Kate isn’t trying to kill Derek, somehow. Except that Kate is not one to let a man come to her only because he has nothing else to do. Except that Stiles has never seen anyone, man or woman, who can resist her pull, the sight and sound and smell of her too much for them to bear to be parted from.

And yet Derek seems unaffected.

And if he is unaffected by her, then perhaps there is hope that he could be affected by someone else.

“Well,” Stiles says, bold smile stretching across his face as he turns to go, “I suppose if you have nothing better to do.”

And then he turns away, still smiling. He feels Derek’s gaze hot on his back as he walks away.

\- - - - -

Morrell is, in many ways, easier than Jackson had been. With him, Lydia had to appeal to his pride, had to let him believe that he was getting more out of their deal than she was. With Morrell, Lydia is only forced to suffer through a few minutes’ condescension before she can allow herself to be condescending in her own right. With Morrell, she can be blunt about what she wants without ever having to tell her exactly what she plans.

And if Morrell fails to understand that Lydia is giving her only the most basic details, well. That’s hardly Lydia’s problem. Let the witch believe that she knows what Lydia wants, what she’s going to do. Let her believe that she knows anything. 

Lydia promises Morrell the seed of the God of Death, and smiles when the witch’s eyes light up. Who knows what the woman plans of doing with the stuff, but that’s hardly Lydia’s concern. She just needed something big enough to convince Morrell to enchant the rope to bind the God of Death. 

“Each vial of the stuff, after the first, will cost a favour.”

Okay, and maybe Lydia wants a few other things, as well, maybe has some vague ideas brewing in the back of her mind, half-formed plans for her little messenger-bird. After all, Stiles had been so helpful already, offering to help carry anything Lydia needed, information or goods, anything, from Above to Below. It would be awfully remiss of her not to give him something in return.

Lydia haggles with Morrell a moment more, but she already knows the witch will cave. Lydia leaves with a length of enchanted rope, a promise of more favors to come, and a building excitement for what will happen next.

\- - - - -

“I’m not interested.”

Stiles gapes, eyes wide. “You’re _not interested_.”

He’s standing in Derek’s chambers, just inside the door, with his arm still outstretched, Kate’s letter trapped in his fingers, frozen with surprise. Derek himself sits across the room on a low chair idly cleaning his sword. He doesn’t look up.

“You’re not interested in Kate, the Goddess of lust and passion. The Goddess you’ve been having an affair with for ages now. And just like that, you’re going to refuse her.”

Derek glances up, a small smirk lingering at the corner of his mouth when his eyes catch Stiles’. In the low light his green eyes dance like jewels, and Stiles feels his heart stutter wildly in his chest. Derek looks away again, back to his sword, and Stiles feels like he can breathe again. He doesn’t know what to say, so he just stands there for a long moment, watching Derek as Derek ignores him.

It’s something Stiles never even thought to wish for. Just like that, Derek has waved Kate off, dismissed her like she wasn’t everything all men are supposed to want. Stiles’ mind whirls, implications and wild imaginings chasing themselves across his mind. Because if Derek doesn’t want Kate, then what _does_ he want?

He doesn’t realize he’s grinning until his cheeks start to hurt.

“Well then,” he says, finally, airy and light. “I guess I’d better go tell her not to waste her time anymore.”

Derek looks up at that, eyes dark and expression unreadable. “Yeah. Do that.”

Stiles grins again, snaps off a lazy salute, just for the way Derek’s brows draw down as he frowns. He turns on his heel and heads for the door.

“Remember,” he says, pausing with his hand on the latch, “My father will need you for battle tomorrow.” Stiles smiles and looks back. “Shall I come for you when it’s time?” The innuendo slips off his tongue without a second thought.

Derek stares at him, brows furrowed as his mouth drops open slightly; his eyes look nearly black, and almost hungry. “You do that,” he mutters, and Stiles shivers at the sound of his voice, all gravel and smoke.

“Yes, I think I will,” Stiles tells him, musingly. And then he’s gone, throwing a smirk over his shoulder as he turns, slipping out the door and down the corridor before Derek can say another word.

\- - - - -

Lydia lazes underneath the tree in the courtyard, the one she and Stiles sat under the first day they met. It’s become their spot, the place where they meet, where they go whenever one of them wants to see the other. She’s been there since mid-morning, and it’s nearly afternoon now, but Stiles has been busy and Lydia is content to relax under their tree and wait for him.

Finally, she hears him whistling up the path, something bouncy and light, and underneath the whisper of the feathers at his heels.

He all but throws himself onto the ground beside her, smiling widely up at her. “Hello Lydia, my dear, how are you this lovely day?”

Lydia arches one eyebrow, staring down at him. “What on earth is going on with you today?”

“Well,” Stiles says, picking idly at a strand of grass. “I may have very, incredibly subtly propositioned the God of War.”

Lydia feels both of her eyebrows shoot up. She stares incredulously. “I thought you said he was with Kate.”

“Mmm,” Stiles hums, smiling. “He was. Apparently he’s not interested anymore.”

“And you think he might be interested in you?”

Stiles grins up at her, eyes shining, mischief written into every inch of him. “I think I could persuade him.”

“Well,” Lydia says, tilting her face into the sunlight, thinking. “Then I guess we’d better get started.”

Stiles props himself up on one elbow. “What do you mean?”

Lydia smiles down at him, “I mean, Stiles, that I’m going to help you win your God. After all, you’re helping me with my capture of Death. Of course I’m going to help you conquer War.”

Stiles levers himself up onto one knee, kneeling beside her as he grasps her hand, bestowing a light kiss across her knuckles. “And this, Lydia my dear, is why I love you so.” 

Lydia laughs, rolling her eyes. “Tonight then,” she says, firmly. “I’ll show you everything you need to know.”

“I promise to be an excellent student,” Stiles vows, grinning up at her with dark eyes.

Lydia eyes the long lines of his fingers, the muscle of his forearms, the perfect bow of his mouth, and smirks down at him.

“Oh, I have no doubt of that.”

\- - - - -

It goes like this:

There is a battle, the Sheriff mustering his men against Chris’s, each side doing their level best to flay the other into pieces. The air shudders with the clash of metal and bone, corpses pile up like hills, and the ground runs red and soggy with blood.

Stiles perches in the branches of a tree in the distance and watches, eyes trained on one figure in particular. His eyes trace the bunch and flex of muscle, the glisten of sweat on skin, the red burnish of blood across broad knuckles.

After, when the battle has finished and the players have disbanded, the losers to tend to their wounds and the victors to celebrate, Stiles makes his way back to Olympus, a shadow flitting through the streets until he reaches his destination.

The window is no obstacle and Stiles slips through in silence and stands, leaning against a pillar, and watches. Derek hasn’t noticed him, preoccupied with unbuckling his armor and stripping off his filthy clothes. Stiles stares with bated breath as every new inch of the God’s skin is revealed.

Finally, the God stands in nothing but his loincloth, the dim light casting golden shadows across the broad expanse of his back. There is a bowl on a side table next to a cloth so Derek can can clean himself; he reaches for them, the motion pulling the muscles of his back into sharper relief. Stiles sucks in a quiet breath and opens his mouth.

“Let me help you with that.”

Derek tenses but doesn’t turn. He stands still, letting his arm fall back to his side as Stiles comes closer, stepping nearly silent on the stone floor. When he’s close enough, he exhales, his breath washing over the back of Derek’s neck, goosebumps rising in it’s wake. Stiles grins; it’s beautiful.

He reaches for the cloth, dipping in in the water. He doesn’t bother wringing it out, just brings it to Derek’s skin, arm wrapped around his chest to swipe at his collarbone. Derek’s breath hitches, slightly, enough.

 _Make him wait,_ Lydia says in his mind. _Make him shake a bit before you go on, make it so that he doesn’t feel anything but what you give him._

Stiles leans closer, hiding his grin at the nape of Derek’s neck. He trails the cloth across Derek’s skin again, feather-light, delighting in the tiny shivers under the God’s skin. Stiles leans in, lips barely grazing Derek’s ear.

“I told you I would come,” Stiles whispers. “And so will you.”

 _He’s used to victory, he’s used to winning. He’s used to fighting and coming out on top,_ Lydia whispers. 

Derek shudders and turns his head slightly, just enough to catch Stiles’ gaze. His eyes are blown black, cheeks flushed. He looks hungry, looks debauched already, and Stiles has barely even begun. Derek doesn’t say anything, just turn his head away again and tilts it back, resting against Stiles shoulder.

_Make it so he gives in._

“Don’t touch,” Stiles whispers. “Don’t turn. Let me do what I want, and I promise you, you will get what you want.”

Derek makes a noise, a low rumble in his throat, and nods, just barely, just enough. Derek is nearly twice his size, could kill him in an instant, could rip him to shreds with his bare hands. But here he is, trembling at under Stiles’ fingers, letting him do this. Stiles can feel the rushing in his veins at the sight of Derek like this, still and silent just because Stiles told him to be. 

_Make him surrender to you, and you will have him._

“Let me,” Stiles says softly, and grins when Derek sighs, tilting his head back, the lines of his body going loose and boneless. 

“I’ve got you.”

\- - - - -

It goes like this:

The portal to the Underworld is hidden at the base of an old tree, gnarled and withered, it’s bark gone grey with age. Slipping in is easy, like twisting herself into a mouse’s burrow. The earth gives easily beneath her fingers and she descends, dark and rich and black. The wide hole gives way to something like a staircase, rough steps hewn from the earth and winding downwards.

Lydia climbs downward for a long time, heedless of the darkness. When light begins to creep towards her, it is pale and greenish, a ghostly sort of light, the light of dark and secret places.

When she reaches the bottom of the staircase, Lydia stops for a moment, gazing with wide eyes at the land she’s reached. Dark fields stretch out before her, black dirt broken by swaths of pale flowers, glowing white and pearly in the dim light. She can hear the steady rush of the wide rivers, the glint of the waters where the Acheron meets the Cocytus. 

There is a small dock on the bank, crude but sturdy. A long boat rests there, bobbing gently on the waters, painted black, with a skull for a figurehead. A figure stands beside it on the dock,tall and thin, his aged, weathered face hidden behind the hood of his dark robes. Lydia approaches him, a small smile on her face.

“Stiles has already paid my way,” she says firmly, staring up at the boatman.

The boatman stands for a long moment without moving; then, finally, he turns to her, bowing slightly. “Your passage is paid,” he says. His voice is barely more than a whisper, more an echo, drifting like the mist across the fields. “I will take you to the other side.”

The passage from one side to the other seems to take an eternity, and yet Lydia is still surprised when she sees the far shore come into view at last. The dock on this side is made of stone, and torches burn with white flame on either side. There is a wide stone staircase leading down into the darkness on the other side.

Lydia stares at it for a long moment, then straightens her shoulders, shakes out her hair, and begins her climb.

The palace, when she reaches it, is barred by gates at every turn. At the first, Lydia pauses, looking around, but there are no gatekeepers, no one to call to to open the way. Lydia pauses a moment, then smiles. She reaches out, placing a hand against the cold black metal.

“I wish to see the God of Death,” she says, softly. “Let me pass.”

There is silence for long moments, and then the gate swings silently open on it’s own. Lydia smiles again and steps through without looking back. The rest of the gates open for her without a word.

She finally meets with another person as she nears the center of the palace, a dark-robed servant who guides her through endless dark stone corridors without a word, until finally they reach an enormous black door. The servant bows, backing away into the shadows.

Lydia takes a deep breath, steadying, and pushes the doors open.

The hall before her is beautiful, in it’s dark, elegant way. There are tapestries against the walls, embroidered scenes of lost souls and souls at rest. The stone pillars are intricately carved, figures like bones or flowers or stalks of reeds along the rivers.

And at the far end, seated in a throne of blackest iron, is the God of Death himself.

“Well,” Peter says, voice soft and light. “What have we here?”

“I’ve come to talk to you about some things,” Lydia says, slowly approaching the throne. “There are some things I want, and some things that I could do for you.” She resists the urge to smirk as she sees the God’s gaze sharpen, interest flaring in his dark eyes. “I thought perhaps we could help each other.” She smiles at him, all innocence; Stiles had been more than happy to teach her that one.

Peter regards her for a long moment before he smiles, charming and dark. “Of course, my dear,” he says, standing. “Perhaps you’d like to dine with me? I do find talking is better done on a full stomach. And it’s such a long way to come to get here,” Peter adds, looking thoughtful. “I imagine you must be hungry.”

“Of course,” Lydia says, doing her best to sound earnest and grateful.

Peter shows her to a long table laid with every food she can imagine, and probably some she can’t.

“Take anything you like from this table,” he tells her, sly smile playing on his lips like he thinks she doesn’t recognise it for the trap it is. Death never offers anything freely; Death always takes without warning. Good thing she’s thought of that. Death cannot take what she’s already freely offered. But she can still take from him.

She picks up a pomegranate, sliced in half, red fruit against white, juice bleeding dark into her hands, and thinks of Stiles telling her about red blood against pale skin, the way it made his blood sing in his veins, his Godly heart beating faster at the sight of it.

 _Six seeds should be enough,_ she thinks, and bites.

She catches Peter’s eyes on her, calculating and victorious. Well, she thinks, Time enough to correct him later. For now, though...

For now, Lydia is exactly where she wants to be.

“Tell me, Peter,” she says, leaning forward. “Do you play chess?”

The God licks his lips, leaning forward as well. “Oh my dear,” he says softly. “I would love to play with you.”

And, _Checkmate,_ Lydia thinks, and smiles, dark and bright.

"Then let's begin."

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Sterek Campaign Teen Wolf Charity Project.


End file.
